


Afflatus

by sherasaidgaywrites



Category: Carry On - Rainbow Rowell
Genre: And paints him all over the goddamn city, Baz stares at him when he walks home past his studio, I wrote this a long time ago and idk why i didn't post it here, M/M, Simon is a dancer, alternate universe - artist
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-21
Updated: 2017-08-21
Packaged: 2018-12-18 03:00:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,767
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11865258
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sherasaidgaywrites/pseuds/sherasaidgaywrites
Summary: Baz is an artist and Simon is his unwitting muse





	Afflatus

Baz always draws him vividly; stark shades of pigment against monochrome backgrounds. Because he's made of them, born into them, radiates light like a second sun.

His skin is made of peaches and sands and walnuts, carefully blended together to form his careful caramel. The moles spread over him, dotting his skin like a road map, are just a shade darker.

His eyes are not the color of water, but the idea of it. They're a blue so pure it's breathtaking, accentuated with ripples of light spilling across the surface and creating radiant reflections. It gives the impression of miles of depth, of countless layers, pretty secrets hidden under them.

His hair is made of a thousand variants of browns and yellows; mostly yellows. Baz spends ages trying to get it right, the way they all fold into one another, the way the light catches on it and pulls out the darker shades. It's like watching a mirage, like trying to exactly capture a roaring fire.

Which is fitting because Simon Snow burns straight through him and he doesn't even know it. Just stumbles through life with his curls bouncing around his head and his shoelaces flopping around his feet and doesn't think twice about anything he does.

The first time he'd seen him, Snow had barreled into him head-on, too preoccupied with whoever he was waving goodbye at to have noticed Baz in his path. It had ended with Baz's things spilled all across the pavement and Simon sucking in a startled breath, choking out an _I'm sorry_ that sounded so genuinely horrified that Baz would have forgiven him if he wasn't so angry already. Instead, he'd snarled at him to sod off, scooping up his things in an enraged flurry, and had purposefully clipped his shoulder on the way past.

They weren't exactly on the best of terms.

But that night, Simon's (of course, he hadn't known his name back then; he'd just been another boy up until Baz had spotted him grinning from the poster hung in the dance studio's window--the one right by his apartment) face had appeared in his sketchbook piece by piece, starting with his eyes--blown wide, lashes splayed out around them--and then moving onto his mouth--lips parted, a gasp practically visible between them--and finishing with his hair--curling in on itself, piling onto his head and spilling downward.

In that first drawing, Simon's moles are not in the correct location, his eyes are much too vivid, his skin tone is too dark, his golden catastrophe of hair is _neat_ , and his face shape is _off._ The chin is too pointed, his jaw too square.

Now, he's studied him often enough that it just comes naturally. Drawing Simon is second nature, like saying hello when you answer the phone or putting your hands out to keep yourself from falling. (But, obviously, Baz is not so good at the latter because he's fallen hard and fast and there was never anything there to lessen the impact.)

It's hard to say _why_ exactly Baz found him so captivating that day, but whatever it was, it's damned him to a life burdened by the heavy weight of unreciprocated love. And it _hurts,_ living every day in silent agony. Watching him plow through existence and not being in his orbit.

Some days, he walks past the studio on his way home and Simon is there, sporting a tank top and a too-big grin and wiping sweat from his brow or going through some intense combo that leaves Baz's mind whirling. It only makes him want him more, his endless energy and sudden brightness. The stubborn set to his jaw.

At some point, it became too much. This starlight building in his chest, this chemical bomb of emotion. He'd wanted to stand on his balcony and shout it out to the world. That he's in love, that Simon Snow is the single most beautiful thing he's ever seen, that his mouth reminds him of cherries.

He'd settled for the next best thing: late night excursions to train yards and alleyways and dark side-streets where he can smear color across bricks without being caught. Occasionally, it's a full portrait; no detail missed, every line and color exact down to the very last stroke. But more often than not, he only paints pieces.

A bright blue eye on the back of a billboard, a pair of lips hidden behind a row of trees on the side of the road, a hand wrapped around the corner of a small shop. As time goes on, the paintings become more and more abstract. Vines twist their way over Simon's chest, his hair more closely resembles lapping flames than tumbling curls, his moles are starlight, fish swim through his irises.

Baz is convinced that no matter how hard he tries, his paintings will never truly capture how Simon makes him _feel_ like no one else--nothing else--can.

Still, it's stupid, a desperate grasp for attention, when he creeps into the alley next to Snow's dance studio and dumps a bag full of spray paint onto the ground next to him. Usually, he goes for more traditional mediums, but tonight he wants something free, something so colorful and erratic that it's heart-stopping.

When he's done, Simon's face is made of overlapping shapes and splattered pigment. It's a whirl-storm, an epiphany. It is not restricted by rules or guidelines and it is certainly not careful. Baz steps back to look at it and chokes on his own breath. _This,_ here, it what it is like to love Simon Snow.

For weeks after that mural, Baz retreats back into his sketchpads and canvas. Simon appears more subtly, no longer the stark and real only center to a page, but a single face in a crowd rushing down the street or a collection of carefully constructed whorls in the bark of a tree.

Baz is afraid. Afraid that he will never have anything close to this boy with golden curls and eyes like muted dreams. Afraid that if he gives himself the chance, that same boy will not be what he wants him to be.

For months, Simon has been there, a subtle and constant presence in Baz's life. He notices him in the most mundane of places: the next aisle at the supermarket, across the room in a restaurant, tucked into an armchair at the library. But Baz has never had the guts to do anything more than look, he doubts that he ever will.

He does not expect him to show up at the art gala the next week. But he does.

Baz is chatting with one of his many acquaintances here, laughing and clinking glasses and throwing around compliments, when he glances back toward the paintings he's decided to display and feels every ounce of air rush out of his lungs. Simon is standing there, an almost reverent look on his face, as he stares at the art. And of course, there's his face in every single one. No matter how subtle.

Baz watches helplessly as his gaze slips down gradually and lands on the plaque hung just below him. His name is engraved there in sculpted gold print, all horrendous twenty-six letters of it. And before he even knows what's happening, Simon's head snaps up like he's felt eyes on him, and suddenly Baz's world is a single shade of deep, unobstructed blue.

He's fairly certain that his face is completely drained of color.

Baz runs. He does not care that people are gasping and dodging out of his way. He does not care that he's leaving a roaring tirade of havoc in his wake. He just knows that he has to get away. That somehow along the way, Simon has become more of an idea than a person, and it's terrifying to think that he could be something more. That he could be everything Baz ever wanted or needed. Or he could be just the opposite, could break his heart. The risk is too much.

He doesn't stop until he's on the other side of the building and out the back door, until he can slump against the wall next to the trash cans and feel his breath be ripped out of him in what are very nearly sobs.

The door opens, light spills across the ground, and Simon steps outside.

Baz's entire body tenses up. He's a millisecond away from bolting when Simon chokes, _"Wait."_ It's nearly the same exact tone he used the first time he spoke to him.

So Baz lets himself look straight into his eyes, and for the first time in six months, Simon looks back.

"You've been painting me. Why?" It's not a challenge or an accusation, just simply a question. Just Simon staring at him in the purest state of confused wonder and asking him to give up the truth.

Baz shrugs and stuffs his hands into the pockets of his slacks. "I haven't been able to get you out of my head."

This makes Simon grin. And then he throws his head back and laughs. His laugh makes Baz want to paint pictures made of loud colors twisted into soft patterns, "Most people would just ask for a date."

Baz feels his cheeks flare. There's a thousand things he wants to say. None of them can quite be put into words. How do you explain to a person that they are the closest thing to a miracle that you have ever witnessed? How do you tell them that just looking at them is so overwhelming that it's terrifying?

Baz just closes his eyes, feels the frigid air on his cheeks and Simon's presence, _right there,_ just waiting. It's his only chance.

"Tomorrow. Let me take you somewhere."

"Only if you promise to let me see the rest of your art."

Baz agrees.

Their relationship is a curious thing. It's like a sketch; dozens of lines layered on top of each other, all of them tracing around the same point, trying to find something concrete.

It's stuttering, inexact. It's Simon's lips and Baz's lips and their youth seeping through. Their inexperience. It's unguided. Fumbling hands and jittery breaths.

But it works in the strange and lovely way that colors blend or charcoal smears. (Together, they make something even more beautiful than before, and they make plenty of messes, but always clean them up.)

Baz knows that they might not last (truly beautiful things never seem to), but he's sure as hell going to make the most of it.


End file.
